Political Communication in Web 2.0
“Today I am addressing you in a completely new way: with a video podcast. New technologies are not just fascinating for young people, I enjoy them as well.” This is how German Chancellor Angela Merkel greeted the internet community in the first episode of her video podcast in June 2006.
While the Chancellor was able to bring off another coup with high media exposure back at the start of the football World Cup, the main parties and some prominent politicians have now caught up and are promoting themselves online with video messages YouTube-style.
The FDP stands out particularly in this respect with the video portal TV-liberal.de, which can also be found on YouTube as a channel in its own right. FDP politicians pick up on current political debates on opposition TV programmes and declare their own party political opinion. The State Governor of Hessen Roland Koch (CDU), the SPD (spd-podcast.de) and the Linksfraktion (Left Fraction; linksfraktion.de) are now represented on the internet with podcasts. The Left Fraction in particular surprisingly has the most modern web presence. Audio and video features and a very “web-two-point-oh-ish” website thanks to the AJAX programming technology.
Nevertheless the same applies to all sites: the presentation is modern in format, however from a content point of view it is predominantly blatant party PR – old ideas in new packages, in other words. What is new though is that this form of political communication gets by without a journalist intermediary. Parties and politicians address citizens unfiltered, without comments and therefore without a professional editorial classification. A heavenly situation for the parties‘ PR and communication strategists. Dialogue orientation, linking with other pages or participation opportunities – three key principles of Web 2.0 – are barely an issue for the creators.
This demonstrates that the parties and politicians are still stuck in the one-sided media logic of the mass media, which does not want to give up the control and influential powers of communication. The web serves most people simply as an additional announcement tool. Yet it was precisely those weblogs by parties and politicians in the 2005 Federal Government elections which inspired the hope that political communication in Germany would reach a new level of quality and become more interactive. But no sooner had the campaign posters been taken down after the election than most of the weblogs were abandoned. The activists find direct communication difficult, an open, interactive dialogue with the internet users is avoided. Yet it is precisely those opportunities to participate, the removal of the boundary between transmitter and receiver as well as networking with online public services, which have accelerated the transformation towards an interactive web.
The political blogosphere in Germany
When it comes to coverage and relevance, alternative information and news portals are more successful, for example Politik-Digital, where live chats with politicians are held once a week, or websites such as abgeordnetenwatch.de and kandidatenwatch.de. On these two portals, the public can question their MPs or candidates in current elections about political positions and topics directly. The number of answered and unanswered questions is put on view publicly. If a politician does not answer promptly or if too many unanswered questions accumulate, it damages their image.
Although the above sites create pressure to act, a look behind the scenes however shows that it is generally not the politicians themselves who give their views, but colleagues who take on the job. The desire of the public for direct communication remains unfulfilled by this and the fundamental ethos of the blogosphere, which is based on authenticity, is violated. The blogging politician Oswald Metzger of Die Grünen represents one of a few positive exceptions to this rule. Metzger writes and replies himself in his blog at focus.de.
Structural changes toTarget Group 2.0?
The democratic hopes and promises that were associated with the internet back in its early days because of its low threshold and interactivity have still not been honoured today even in the times of Web 2.0 in Germany. Although smaller web-based target groups keep being formed in weblogs and podcasts, a critical mass of active users who write actively on political topics has however not yet been achieved. It is the networking of web-based target groups and their connection to the mass-media-characterised public domain that is missing. The political grass roots publicity on the web still lacks coverage and relevance. On the other hand the political activists on the internet are also still tied to the logic of the mass media. So, all in all, the Germans are still a long way from the ideal of a deliberative discussion culture establishing itself on the web.Nevertheless the developments relating to Web 2.0 have kick-started a process of transformation that will permanently change the way in which the public domain will be created by the media in future as a result of the constantly increasing user numbers of weblogs, wikis, podcasts and social networks. With the increasing importance of the internet and new publication and communication formats in Web 2.0, the public domain will no longer be defined exclusively by the old mass media gatekeeper. Development so far has already started off a transformation in structure towards a networked society, so that the logic of the mass media and that of the network media are starting to overlap – they are growing together. And political communication will have to react to this as well.
communication and media scientist, born in 1975, works at the University of Trier and advises media firms on the use of Web 2.0 formats.
Translation: Jo Beckett
Copyright: Goethe-Institut e. V., Online-Redaktion
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December 2007
